Tag: construction work

The risks being taken by workers in India to build the country’s homes, infrastructure and commercial buildings recently came under the spotlight in an article on BBC.com.

The post mentioned a number of workers including Mr Hasan, a construction worker who fell to his death at a site near Delhi. He should have been wearing a harness, a protective helmet, boots with a firm grip and should have an insurance policy against accidents.

Despite it being legally required for construction firms to provide these things to workers, most construction companies simply don’t.

In India many firms don’t follow the rules in order to save money and instead risk lives.

The post mentions 5 other workers who died in a similar manner to Mr Hasan and dozens more were seriously injured.

Unfortunately workers have no choice but to work under these conditions despite their fears because they need the work.

Brisbane residents want construction work to start later in the morning and have signed a petition in the hopes of being heard.

According to a report in the Brisbane Times, the petition was started by a resident in Woolloongabba who said that the 6:30am start time for construction work in the city is too early and should be pushed back.

In other parts of the country, like Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and Darwin construction work starts at 7am. In Sydney construction work in the suburbs only starts at 7:30am and 7am in the city.

The frustration of residents may be driven by the massive amount of development taking place in inner suburbs in Brisbane.

Last month saw a sharp improvement in Australia’s housing and apartment construction sectors as well as a rise in Australia’s residential building approvals.

According to the Australian Industry Group’s (Ai Group) Performance of Construction Index (PCI), the construction industry has enjoyed a strong start to 2018, with activity rising 1.7 points in January to 56.0 – anything above 50 indicates the industry is expanding.

In February activity levels not only rose but did so at a faster rate than it did in January.

According to the Ai Group, activity levels have improved in each of the past 13 months.

Tesla’s latest product was recently revealed by Elon Musk during a presentation in LA. The product is solar panel roofing that come in 4 different styles. What makes them different to other solar panels? In the words of Musk “the key is to make solar look good”, which is what this product does.

The tiles have a special coating that changes depending on the viewing angle. The coating becomes transparent when seen directly from the angle of the street making it inconspicuous, camouflaging it essentially. Underneath the coating are the solar cells.

Construction work in Melbourne has resulted in the destruction of an artefact of the city’s street culture, a group of Banksy stencils.

The stencils are by the underground street artist Banksy.

Construction workers damaged the stencils when they were installing a doorway in AC/DC Lane.

The stencils were believed to have been created in 2003 by the anonymous British artist but now even the rubble containing the work has been loaded into a skip and dumped. Melbourne is the country’s street art capital.

According to a post on Sourceable.net Australia could become a pioneer for the creation of durable and long lasting concrete if proposed changes for the criteria for concrete durabililty come to pass. It would mean Australia has the best standards for concrete production in the world.

The criteria would mean that concrete would become more sustainable and long lasting because according to experts international standards aren’t sufficient in addressing premature deterioration.

The post on Sourceable.net quoted expert Farhad Nabavi from Xypex Australia who said that existing international standards governing concrete building materials fail to address one of the primary factors in its premature deterioration. The Australian standard would attempt to address this concern.